Canadian Rockies I
July 31 - Aug 6, 2007
I haven't been to the Rockies in a long time. We used to drive through them all the time on family vacations to Calgary, but I didn't have much of an appreciation for mountains at that time. At the end of July, I had a week off, and Mark was free too, so we decided to spend some time exploring the BC and Alberta Rockies. Mark had done a similar trip a few years ago, but his big regret was that he never got a chance to check out Mt. Assiniboine due to its inaccessibility. That hike was therefore on the top of our list, and we also planned to check out a few other areas along the way.
DAY 1 (DRIVING EAST): We set out EARLY (6am) on Tuesday morning from Vancouver. Fortunately traffic was going the opposite direction, so we made good time out to Hope, then Kamloops via the Coquihalla, and finally Salmon Arm for a quick lunch next to Shushwap Lake. From there the views started to get more interesting as we passed Revelstoke, Roger's Pass in Glacier National Park, and Golden. We stopped briefly at Emerald Lake in Yoho National Park, which was definitely worth it. We ate some Subs at the Spiral Tunnels viewpoint.
From there we pressed onwards toward Lake Louise, and then deviated from the main highway to take the scenic route down the Bow Valley Parkway. We saw quite a bit of wildlife along the road, including a moose and two bear cubs. At Banff we rejoined the main highway until Canmore, where we turned off to drive up past the Spray Lakes reservoir to the Mt. Shark Parking Lot. We arrived around 11:30pm Mountain Time, and the back of the mininvan was our campsite for the night.
DAY 2 (MT SHARK LOT TO LAKE MAGOG - 8.5h, 25km, 520m elevation): We were up before the sun rose on Wednesday morning - 5:15am BC time! Okay maybe not completely awake, but that's when the alarm went off. It took us a while to get up, pack our bags, and lock up the minivan. We started hiking around 7am BC time. We were definitely aware that bears were in the area - lots of warning bulletins us, smashed in garbage containers, droppings, and bark scratched off trees! We had a pretty decent bear deterrent arsenal though - 2x medium bear spray, bear bangers, lots of bells, and a pair of whistles. We never saw a single bear through so we must have either been doing something right, or been lucky!
The trail started out as a long, flat boring gravel road, albeit with impressive mountain views. We walked a LONG way before we came across anything interesting - a few creek crossings, and Watridge Lake. From there the trail was still wide and not that interesting - lots of signs of bears though - and it gained elevation slowly and steadily. Eventually we broke out of the trees and got some amazing views of the surrounding peaks. We came to a large meadows with even better views, and at the end of it we stopped for a delicious lunch. We noticed a LOT of helicopters flying by - we counted at least 5 or 6, probably more. There's a lodge at Mt Assiniboine, and people having the option of paying to be flown in or out; Wednesday is one of the helicopter days.
From there we began to climb up towards Assiniboine Pass. This is apparently the shortest and easiest route into the Mt Assiniboine Core Area. The trail was a little rougher and steeper, but it wasn't a tough climb to the top. At the pass we left Alberta and entered both BC and Mt Assiniboine Provincial Park. From here we lost a little bit of elevation, walked across quite a few meadows, and came to our first spectacular view of Mt Assiniboine!
The campsite wasn't much further, and we got there around 3:30pm. Unfortunately, all the spots were taken, so we had to improvise a campsite in a meadow. Some of the people camping there clearly hadn't walked in and it was too bad that they got the best sites while the tired hikers got the leftovers! Oh well, we didn't spend much time at our tentsite except for sleeping anyway. One nice thing was the large number of bear caches available, meaning we didn't have to hang our food. We went down to the great pebble beach at Lake Magog to cook dinner, and got an amazing sunset view of Mt Assiniboine.
DAY 3 (NUB SCRAMBLE - 5 h, 5.8 km, 365 m elevation): We got to sleep in a little bit, since we were only doing a scramble today and not moving our tent or any of our gear - what a treat! We got hiking around 10am or so, and quickly came to Sunburst and then Cerulean Lakes. We pressed on to Elizabeth Lake but realized that we had gone too far; after a quick retracing of steps, we were back on track for Nub peak, our destination for the day. The first objective was a smaller peak called Nublet, which we easily reached at around 11:30am. We had fantastic views of the lakes around us, and took our time taking photos.
From Nublet we crossed Nub saddle, and did a slightly more challenging scramble upwards. It was not bad at all, mostly walking, and around 12:30pm we were at the peak where we enjoyed a delicious lunch of trail mix, melty chocolate, and crackers. The views were incredible in all directions.
After taking lots of photos, we climbed back down Nub, and returned to Sunburst Lake, where we had a great long swim. The water was actually surprisingly warm and I was able to swim for about 30 minutes. We returned to our campsite, cooked down at Lake Magog, and did a short walk around Lake Magog to the foot of Mt Assiniboine. We went back to the Lake Magog beach afterwards and watched the incredibly bright stars come out.
DAY 4 (LAKE MAGOG TO MT SHARK LOT VIA WONDER PASS - 9h, 26km, 700m elevation): We were up bright and early to pack up our camp, have breakfast, and head on our way to Wonder Pass. We were hiking by about 8:15am, first around Lake Magog, then past the Lodge. There were lots of cabins there, and a very posh cooking shelter with hardwood floors, stainless steel countertops, and huge bright windows! We climbed upwards through very nice meadows, until we reached the very windy Wonder Pass at 9:30am, where we stopped for a snack. We started to lose elevation again until we came to a jaw-dropping view of deep-blue, glacier-surrounded Marvel Lake.
We descended a little further down steep switchbacks, and then the trail levelled out and we walked the length of Marvel Lake which actually took quite a bit of time. We finally left Marvel Lake and made it to the Bryant Creek shelter at 12:30pm, where we stopped for a well-deserved lunch. Some of the bravest/stupidest squirrels I've ever seen live there.
The rest of the hike we had already seen on the way in. It was much longer and more boring than I remembered - so straight! At least we were mostly very gradually losing elevation instead of climbing. We ran into quite a few people walking in, since it was a Friday. Mark was having knee and blister problems, and I was pretty exhausted (we had covered more than 60km in 3 days!), so we finally stumbled out of the trail around 5:15pm, and were we ever glad to see the parking lot! We had a fantastic drive out past Spray Lake, a mediocre dinner at Canmore Smittys, a tasty beer and brownie at Boston Pizza, and a short drive to the tiny hamlet of Morley (near Calgary), where we pulled off to the side of the road and slept in the back of the van. Our first choice of pull-off spots turned out to be in the middle of a major road, so we tried again with better luck.
